MC of green lumber

[vfauto]

Is there a rule of thumb for MC % of green lumber or are the species all different? If so is there a chart somewhere?

[beenthere]

Some rules of thumb, but the Wood Handbook will have tables for individual species (these are averages which is about as good as one can get).

See chapter 4 of the new Wood Handbook
http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fplgtr190/chapter_04.pdf

[vfauto]

Yes, but my meter's range only goes to 20% and I was looking for a reference that wood starts at. The reference handbook mentioned earlier seems to have the answers.

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, there can be a wide range of MC by species when green and depends on how fresh cut to. The Wood Handbook beenthere linked up is about the best your going to get and free.

[scsmith42]

It varies per species, but most of the oak that I've sawn is around 50%.

[SwampDonkey]

Hard maple is around 70%, and oak and hard maple weight about the same when dried. But oak is a lot heavier green.

[woodmills1]

I have seen oak at 150% green moisture content

that is 10 pounds of dry oak with 15 pounds of water

[SwampDonkey]

You realize though, that over 100 % MC and wood sinks in water, a little before that for some species. There is a formula to approximate it in the Wood Handbook for kicks. ;) Live oak however will sink when dryer than green, maybe 12-13 %. At 12 % it's 62 lbs/ft3 (average) and density of water is 62.4 lb/ft3. No other native wood comes close. :D

[John Mc]

Here's a link to some tables of burn characteristics of various species of wood:
http://www.mb-soft.com/juca/print/firewood.html.

One of the tables pertinent to this topic appears about 2/3 of the way down the page: a table which ranks wood by a species green moisture content. Interesting, and confirms the old saw around here that if you have to burn green wood, or have limited time for drying, White Ash is one of the better choices.

I've attached a copy of the table in MS Excel format. If I could figure out how to use the forum tables, I'd have just put it in the body of this post, but I don't have the time to figure it out right now.

John Mc

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, white ash, any of the cedars, Douglas fir etc have low MC. This data is available in many sources, Wood Handbook, Textbook of Wood Technology, etc. I like the latter since it shows a nice table of the physical properties of wood, which saves thumbing through pages. I have my doubts it can be bought unless someone puts a used copy on Amazon or ebay. I find it a valuable resource, not so much for any day job I've had, but for discussions and wood ID. For ID, it has keys ,micrographs and written descriptions. And a lot of little things that are added that makes that wood stand out from something similar when separating different woods that are close.

[John Mc]

I forgot to mention that I only reproduced a the MC content section of the link in the Excel file I attached above. There are some other interesting tables on BTU content, seasoned weight, and burn characteristics in the link shown.

John Mc